In The Silence Of The Night
by lovelyverdigris
Summary: [PrePhantom] Madame Giry. How does she know so much? Combo of musical and movieverse, set in Mme. Giry's childhood, trying to explain exactly what her relationship with the Phantom is and what part she plays in the whole scenario. [GiryErik, eventually]
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Despite all evidence to the contrary, I am not Gaston Leroux, or Andrew Lloyd Webber.

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Adrienne Giry was an older sister. She had one young brother, called Philippe. He was one of her only companions during her childhood. He had a bright face, golden curls and bright blue eyes inherited from their mother. Adrienne, on the other hand, had ended up with a mass of often-unmanageable black hair and dull grey-brown eyes from their father's side of the family. Their parents hadn't mistreated her or anything, but they had always favored Philippe. So, as soon as she was old enough, they shipped her off to live in the ballet dormitories of the Paris Opera House.

She was a shy seven-year-old, avoiding contact with the other girls, preferring to throw her entire consciousness into her dancing. Under the strict, watchful eye of Madame Romilly the ballet mistress, Adrienne began her training as a ballerina.

Then one day, a month or two after she had first come to the Opera, a class was interrupted. Two men dressed all in black came into the room, spoke briefly with Madame Romilly, and left. At the end of the class, the ballet mistress told Adrienne that her parents and brother had perished in a horrible fire. The funeral was to be the next morning.

The next morning, accompanied by Madame Romilly, Adrienne trekked across the grey streets of Paris to the church. It was early in the morning, before the service officially started. Adrienne, with an intense air of silence about her, knelt and said a little prayer over her brother's casket, turned around, and walked out. From that moment on, she realized that she was alone in the world. She was determined to make something of herself as a dancer. She turned her mind away from her old life. She was no longer the sister of Philippe Giry, the blemish on her family's presence at social events. She was Adrienne Giry, and nothing more.

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A/N: Hey there! Sorry for the Series-Of-Unfortunate-Events-ish beginning and the slight emoness. If Mme. Giry really does have a first name, let me know. If not, I will continue to use mine.


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Nope. Still not GL or ALW.

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Seven years had passed. Fourteen-year-old Adrienne Giry stood at a window in her dormitory. She was the only one ready. Her roommates, including her best friend Meg, were taking an obnoxiously long time dressing. Adrienne stared out the window, wishing the other girls would hurry up so they could get outside. A traveling fair was in town and, deciding the girls needed a break, Madame Romilly finally agreed to let them go. The brightly colored tents looked like toys from her high window. They rippled in the breeze, along with the pennants flying from their tops, and the large banners hanging off the front of the opera house-

"Adrienne?" Adrienne turned. The other girls had already left; Meg was waiting for her by the door. Adrienne grabbed her blue mantle and followed Meg out the door. They ran down the spiral staircase into the backstage area. Madame Romilly did a headcount, and the group of girls exited through the stage door.

Once outside, everyone gained a small sense of freedom. They stayed in a tight group, but every now and then a girl would twirl around, smelling the air for no apparent reason. Walking in groups of two and three, the girls giggled with excitement. Even Adrienne, who was usually quite somber, giggled a little with Meg as they crossed the plaza to the forest of little tents.

The girls passed through the temporary arch and into the fair. There was much pointing and many "Oooh!"s and "Wow"s. Adrienne stared around in wide-eyed wonderment as Meg pointed and chattered in her ear. Finally, Madame Romilly let them go, warning them that they had better be back by the arch when the five o'clock bells tolled. Once on their own, Meg and Adrienne didn't know where to begin. After a moment, Meg just grabbed Adrienne's elbow and dragged her off in a random direction.

After a few minutes of winding through narrow walkways between tents, the two friends came across something highly unusual. It looked like a large round open tent. But it wasn't. The bottom made moderately quick revolutions around a painted, mirrored center with a large smokestack on top. Large, painted animals lined its perimeter, each with a pole down its center, moving up and down. It played a light, tinkling melody that sounded almost, but not quite, like bells. Adrienne and Meg stared at it wide-eyed.

"What do you suppose it is?" Adrienne asked in wonderment. Meg gazed around a moment, and then pointed. A large banner bore a single word in bright red letters: "Carousel". A smaller one underneath it read "Enter". The carousel seemed to be slowing down. Meg's eyes brightened.

"Let's ride it," she said eagerly, and started off towards the carousel. Adrienne pulled her back.

"Wait a moment," Adrienne said, "We haven't any money." Meg smiled deviously.

"That's where you're wrong," she said, and pulled one foot out of its shoe. Balancing precariously on one foot so as not to step in the dirt, Meg reached down and poured the contents of the shoe into her hand. Adrienne's eyes widened when she saw the small handful of coins.

"Meg!" she gasped, "Where did you find all that?" Meg smiled again and slid her foot back into her shoe.

"It's amazing what you find if you just look." The carousel stopped and the few people riding it dismounted. The girls dashed toward it. Meg dropped some coins in the hand of the man by the gate, and she and Adrienne went through. After a few moments of indecision, they chose their animals. Adrienne climbed up on the back of a large white swan on the outside rim, and Meg chose a black horse with a purple saddle a few rows up. (A/N: Early carousels had more animals than horses, they had stuff like cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, etc.) Anxiously they waited, and in a few moments they were rewarded as the carousel slowly began to spin.

The spinning was slow at first, a few grinding rotations as the wooden animals slowly rose and fell. But soon it had built up into a giddying pace, the almost-bells tinkling out their joyous melody. Adrienne felt the air rush through her hair. She looked out, watching the carnival outside slide by as she turned, over and over. She looked ahead of her and saw Meg a few rows up, always staying the same distance away. She thought about the irony of it; she was spinning, but the world outside the carousel was actually what was turning, and she and Meg were staying in the same place. The carousel was a little bubble of time-out-of-time. Adrienne smiled.

But all too soon it was over. The spinning ground to a stop. Adrienne, giddy with excitement, jumped down off her swan, and then realised she was dizzy. Her stomach gave a horrible turn. Quickly and carefully, Adrienne stepped off the platform and grabbed onto the surrounding fence. It was just like when she had a stomach virus the previous year, but worse; the earth beneath her didn't want to stay still. It wanted to turn and leave her behind. Meg was all smiles when she came over, but seeing Adrienne's pale face tinged slightly green she ran over to support her friend. Meg dragged Adrienne's arm over her shoulder and helped the poor girl over to the nearest trash bin, and then bench.

"Are you alright, Adrienne," Meg asked anxiously. Adrienne nodded, taking a few deep breaths. After her mind felt that it had regained control of her stomach, and the earth settled beneath her, Adrienne grinned.

"That was amazing!" Adrienne said, a bit of color returning to her cheeks. Meg smiled with relief, and the two girls resumed their normal fast paced chatter.

_Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong!_

The bells rang loudly, tolling the arrival of four o'clock. The girls figured that if they had been lost the first time around, they would get even more lost on the way back, so they should start heading back now.

It turned out, however, that they were wrong. They quickly found their way back to the entrance of the fair. Figuring it would be better to stay there and not get lost again, they milled around with the other girls who had also decided to come back early. Suddenly, two more girls came running over to the meeting spot; they saw one of their friends and began talking to her a mile a minute. Adrienne caught some of the conversation.

"…Devil's child?" "Oh yes, it was horrid–" "If it was so horrid, why do you want me to go look at it?" "Because it was incredible…" A moment later, the third girl had been dragged off down a path and away from the meeting spot.

"Should we go check it out?" Meg asked Adrienne. Adrienne nodded, they had nothing better to do. So Adrienne and Meg followed the other three girls a little ways down one path to a large dirty tent. It had a sign above the entry, reading "Devil's Child" in large, red-orange letters. There was a small sinking feeling in the pit of Adrienne's stomach as she and her friend ducked inside.

The inside of the tent was dark, cool, and damp. The only light coming in was from a small, well-placed hole high up in the tent canvas, and through the opening where Adrienne and Meg had just come in. In this dim light, they could see several small groups of Ballet rats gathered around the cage, as well as other people who had come to view the spectacle. Meg managed to push her way through the rest of the people and drag Adrienne right up to the front. As soon as she got there, she wasn't sure she wanted to be.

The occupant of the cage was a small, dirty boy. He was clad only in a ragged pair of leggings that were torn off at the knee, and his chest was bare. Over his head he wore a small, dirty sack with two eyeholes cut into it. In one hand he held an equally dirty sock monkey, and in the other a small pair of finger cymbals. His back was covered with criss-crossed red marks. He sat pitifully in the center of the cage, surrounded by damp hay. Adrienne looked on sadly, wondering what sick mind found this entertaining.

Suddenly, it got worse. A large, obviously very drunk bearded man came in with a knotted leather strap. The boy was looking off in the opposite direction, placing the cymbals on the hands of the monkey. But as soon as he began to clap them together, the large man tore the monkey out of the boy's hands and began to beat him. Adrienne was horrified. The boy writhed around in pain, but made not a sound. Suddenly, the man dragged the boy into a sitting position and pulled the sack off his head. The audience gasped.

Half of the boy's face was normal enough, if dirty. It was a young face, Adrienne couldn't imagine he was older than herself. The other half of his face was twisted and distorted with what looked like a cross between a nasty rash and a third degree sunburn. It was a horrid red, with little purple patches, almost as if it were raw muscle exposed. Both of his eyes shone not with agony, but with intense sadness. Adrienne made eye contact with him for a second, but then he closed his eyes and looked away. Suddenly, the large man gave him an unexpected kick and the boy went sprawling flat across the cage. The audience laughed as the boy scrambled for his sack and dragged it over his head. They dropped coins and began to leave. Adrienne lingered a moment, but turned to go as well. Just as she reached the entrance of the tent, she turned around to find a very disturbing sight.

A bit of rope must have come loose from the holdings of the cage. The boy had taken it, snuck up behind the large man and, as Adrienne turned around, threw it around his neck and bulled. The man's eyes bulged, he clawed at his throat, trying to call out, but the air was being forced from his lungs by the rope the boy held around his neck. He struggled for another moment, but at last the man fell down dead. The boy reached into the man's pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. As he got up to unlock the cage, he saw Adrienne and froze. Adrienne ran back up to the cage.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she whispered. The boy tensed up, like a dear in headlights. Adrienne reached through the bars of the cage and touched the boy's shoulder. He flinched. "I can help you," Adrienne said softly, "Come with me and I can hide you." The boy stayed frozen for another moment. Shouting came from outside, and footsteps, getting closer. Quickly, the boy selected the correct key from the ring in his hands and shoved it through the bars to Adrienne. Adrienne fit it into the old rusty lock and gave it a heave. Slowly, it turned. As the cage door swung open, the boy turned around and scooped his sock monkey up into his arms. Then he stepped out of the cage, obviously looking at Adrienne. She couldn't see his eyes behind the sack. The shouting and footsteps grew louder. Adrienne grabbed the boy's hand and ran, ducking out of the back flap of the tent.

Outside the tent, Adrienne looked up and down the outside fence for a side entrance. She caught sight of a hole in the fence and ran to it. It was small, but she was small, and so was the boy. She urged him to go through it, then scrambled through herself. Taking his hand again, they raced across the plaza to the front of the Opera House. There was a small gate on the front. Adrienne pulled it open and turned to the boy.

"This leads to the chapel," Adrienne said, "Stay behind the grille and be very quiet. I'll come get you as soon as possible." The boy stared at her for a moment. "_Go!_" she urged, giving him a nudge in the right direction. He blinked, and then ducked off into the darkness. Adrienne herself turned and began to run back across the plaza.

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Hey everyone! I have really been out of it for a while, school finishing, physics regents, my Senior graduating…Haven't been writing much fanfic. I've actually been doing some original writing (AKA fanfic about people in chorus). But school's over, and I fully intend to update all of my fics. Love to the Marauders, and to Raida and Francesca for being Phantom freaks.


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